Quotes About Influence

human beings come into the world with a passion for control

Impact is rewarding. Mattering makes us happy.

In short, we derive support for our preferred conclusions by listening to the words that we put in the mouths of people who have already been preselected for their willingness to say what we want to hear.

Why isn't it fun to watch a videotape of last night's football game even when we don't know who won? Because the fact that the game has already been played precludes the possibility that our cheering will somehow penetrate the television, travel through the cable system, find its way to the stadium, and influence the trajectory of the ball as it hurtles toward the goalposts!

Leadership is not domination, but the art of persuading people to work toward a common goal.

Our emotional mind will harness the rational mind to its purposes, for our feelings and reactions-- rationalizations-- justifying them in terms of the present moment, without realizing the influence of our emotional memory.

But the rational mind usually doesn't decide what emotions we "should" have !

For better or worse, intelligence can come to nothing when the emotions hold sway.

Never argue. To win an argument is to lose a sale.

maybe those decisions were bad because he made them in the afternoon

questions can outperform statements in persuading others.

The third method of self-distancing, as Julius Caesar and Elmo teach us, is through language. Kross, Ayduk, and others have carried out some fascinating research concluding that "subtle shifts in the language people use to refer to themselves during introspection can influence their capacity to regulate how they think, feel, and behave under stress.

management—not merely how bosses treat us at work, but also how the broader ethos has leached into schools, families, and many other aspects of our lives.

and, in its own sweet way, more beautiful than we realize. The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness.

The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness.

If you happen to appear before a parole board just before a break rather than just after one, you'll likely spend a few more years in jail—not because of the facts of the case but because of the time of day.

The ability to move others to exchange what they have for what we have is crucial to our survival and our happiness. It

Even "sophisticated economic agents acting in real and highly incentivized settings are influenced by diurnal rhythms in the performance of their professional duties.

We're persuading, convincing, and influencing others to give up something they've got in exchange for what we've got.

Treat everyone as you'd treat your grandmother, but assume that Grandma has eighty thousand Twitter followers.

People use rewards expecting to gain the benefit of increasing another person's motivation and behavior, but in so doing, they often incur the unintentional and hidden cost of undermining that person's intrinsic motivation toward the activity."4

Careful consideration of reward effects reported in 128 experiments lead to the conclusion that tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation

Physicians sell patients on a remedy. Lawyers sell juries on a verdict. Teachers sell students on the value of paying attention in class. Entrepreneurs woo funders, writers sweet-talk producers, coaches cajole players. Whatever our profession, we deliver presentations to fellow employees and make pitches to new clients. We try to convince the boss to loosen up a few dollars from the budget or the human resources department to add more vacation days.

Ferlazzo makes a distinction between "irritation" and "agitation." Irritation, he says, is "challenging people to do something that we want them to do." By contrast, "agitation is challenging them to do something that they want to do.